"Hybrid" Tax Reduction?

[DemonTaoist]

You guys ever play other MMOs? There is already virtually no "tax" to begin with and the fact that hybrids can be competitive DPSers at all is already pretty preposterous.

I think BGs are the best example of where and why hybrids are "taxed" (even though, they really aren't in WoW).

[JesusCrist]

1) I don't think anyone can quote when they ever stated "5% ideal" tax. GC has disavowed any notion of that as a tax.

2) The reason I mention "Skill determines DPS" is because I think a lot of people spend too much time worrying about the spec when it has a relatively small impact on output. There are elem that do 17k+ on stand-and-nukes. That's competitive (or even topping) in probably 95% of the guilds out there. (Yes I realize they wouldn't do those numbers in a worse guild, since it's tied to fight length etc etc., making a light point). I think a lot of people find themselves doing less than they feel they should and they latch onto anything whatsoever to explain it, rather than continuing to try and dig up what it is they're doing wrong.

3) It would be solved by giving them a second role, and I imagine if this team designed another MMO they wouldn't add any purists. Whether changing a spec to be heal/tank right now would fix things or not isn't clear. I know I've certainly done my share of time imagining demo/BM as tanks, arcane as heal, and... likely combat or sub as a tank. (special dodge/parry/evasion mechanics) Where we are right now it would cause a lot of design heartache, though, and I think the devs feel that a 1-2% tax shouldn't really offend anyone, since the math behind it all is far more cryptic than anyone gives it credit for anyways.

The actual number for the tax is part of a formula, which I'm going to write here, a bit tongue-in-cheek:
(pressure to switch dps->tank/heal) * (likelihood of switch) = (performance advantage for pures) * (likelihood desire to optimize causes switch)

I think it's reasonable to assume "likelihood of switch" is within a few % for each, maybe twice as likely someone under pressure to tank/heal will switch as that someone under pressure to perform will reroll pure. So, depending on those various factors (which none of us know, and likely Blizz only has vague estimates on), the 'tax' may only be a couple of percent, if it even needs to exist.

If your argument is that pures can not be given the option of new roles because it would be a lot of work for Blizzard I am afraid I do not see much merit in that. For one thing, no release date has been set for the launch of Cataclysm. They could still take as much time with it as they want. And they have already shown that they are open to redesigning classes. They changed DK's so that they only had one tanking spec after all, and they have released several paragraphs on the massive changes to Paladins. (Not complaining about either of those things, merely pointing them out.) But even if they want Cataclysm out sooner then later, no one is saying that this kind of change has to be delivered right away. If Ghostcrawler came out tomorrow and said that eliminating the pure nature of pure classes was a long-term goal, I think many would find that satisfactory, provided of course that there was somewhat steady proof of working toward that goal. My argument isn't that the Hybrid Tax is crippling, or that it makes it impossible for those classes to be competitive. My argument is that it is fundamentally unfair for it to be the official policy that one DPS spec should be able to do more DPS spec because that player could theoretically switch specs. Let's say that theoretically the hybrid tax was eliminated. How long would it take for the loss of pure classes to happen? Especially if Ghostcrawler did announce that the pure classes would be given secondary roles? I would be willing to bet that Blizzard would be able to redesign 4 specs before the pure classes disappeared.

[Deleted]

I dont get the whole " pure classes will lose players". No they fking wont.. The majority of WoW players are casuals or semi-casuals and those kind of players aswell as a chunk of the more competetive players play their class because they like the class not because they like the dps.. I mean when you read all the "Why do you play your class" threads you dont see "Well shamans healing is so awesome LOLOLOL" it more like "Well I think totems are awesome and Chain Heal has a cool sound!"

I have alot of friends that would never think of rerolling even if they suck as dps or tanking or healing. I am the same way, I would never trade my shaman for anything else even if I do less dps or worse healing. This is just Blizzards way of postponing having to balance it out I think.

[BigGann]

Let's be completely honest. There is really no such thing as a hybrid anymore. Back in vanilla, if things got shitty, I dropped shadow form and healed. I tossed chain heals on my shaman. Given the buffs and capabilities back then, we were hybrids. Now days, there is no such thing as a hybrid class really. If I'm enhance, I dps, I don't heal. If I'm shadow, I dps, the only thing I have done on my priest is soaked molten fists when we lost our ot. Go go dispersion and quick thinking.

We don't offer specific buffs like we used to. We don't offer anything unique. We have very specific roles. That is not being a hybrid. Instead of thinking in terms of class capabilities, we need to think in terms of spec capabilities and realize that hybrids are dead. Now there is just pure dps specs, pure tanking specs, and healing specs.

[Alcsaar]

I don't see why people think its so easy changing specs. It can be but having more than 1 or 2 very well geared sets isn't a walk in the park.

Also why are people complaining? Pures can change their spec to ANYTHING with most just changing their weapons. They get the bonus of different flavors of dps specs.

remove hybrid tax imo.

I have to disagree. Most pure dps classes I see require different gemming or gear pieces for specs. For example, Im a MM Hunter gemmed ArPen. If I wanted to play Survival, I'd have to re gem to Agility to get the full benefit of the spec.

[Jynks]

With the increasingly raid buffs that all classes and specs now bring to raiding the "hybrid tax" makes even less sense. Bring the player not the class doesn't nulify the arguement either, how often do you get people that play all roles within their class equally well. Rarely, so if you are bringing the player for competancy at a particular role then why do you tax their DPS because they might be able to switch roles without changing toons.

Makes no sense, hybrid tax is dumb.

As an adendum, if you do have a hybrid tax why are Feral Druids and Fury Warriors holding so many of teh top 10 parses worldwide. Stupid system, stupid implemntation.

[Worshaka]

Will the hybrid tax on shamans be reduced?

Are you insinuating that there are differing hyrbrid taxes applied to classes? Let's assume you just mean hybrid tax in general, it's obvious to me you don't read blue posts or pay attention to the communication the developers send out constantly.

I don't know how many times i've read blue posts stating that there is no number that developers attempt to tax hybrids. All they do is in the balancing calculation is provide the pure classes with a slightly higher potential. If you choose to be honnest with yourself, you'll find that a skilled hybrid class player has more than enough opportunity to out perform a pure class player.

Now this is the most alarming thing... what's it matter if a rogue can output 10K dps to your 9.6k... if your guild is focused correctly everyone is part of a team and the only thing that matters is whether you are able to clear content effeciently and consistently. If you are doing that what the hell does it matter if your potential dps is slightly lower than that of someone else? This whole discussion smells of an ego trip where people require DPS meters to re-inforce their self inflated opinions of themselves.

Sadly the majority of the population don't place any esteem in correct positioning, the ability to avoid damage, carrying out encounter specific tasks like decursing etc quickly... There is so much more that goes into successful raiding then reaching the highest DPS figure. In fact in my experience those who can reach enormously high DPS figures tend to have poor survivability, no doubt caused by the tunnel vision syndrome of maximising DPS when it means little.

I've raided with some very good shaman and in my experience both enhance and ele shaman can be more than competitive on DPS meters if they have a decent amount of skill. But of course the population feel that if they can't reach the numbers others can it's somehow a problem with their class instead of a problem with them.

I suggest you spend your energy in being a better player than lobbying blizzard for buffs or a change of heart on this so called hybrid tax.

[msdos]

there's no need to try and identify what a hybrid is or means anymore, i only use the phrase "hybrid tax" because that seems to just be a euphemism for whatever ineptitude blizzard has going on.

of course there is no true hybrid anymore - it's the xpac of specialists. ever since they started giving bosses enrage timers, DPS could no longer "take care of themselves" in the sense that they might want to take some pressure off the healers, there just isn't time for that - like how in Vanilla people would frequently be told to bandage, heal yourself, etc.

in my eyes, shamans weren't getting taxed because they were hybrids, but because they brought unique buffs that pretty much meant they were mandatory in a raid. why should someone who's gonna get brought regardless of how much DPS they do be able to compete with pures who compete for their spots?

exactly.

[Jynks]

Will the hybrid tax on shamans be reduced?
Now this is the most alarming thing... what's it matter if a rogue can output 10K dps to your 9.6k... if your guild is focused correctly everyone is part of a team and the only thing that matters is whether you are able to clear content effeciently and consistently. If you are doing that what the hell does it matter if your potential dps is slightly lower than that of someone else? This whole discussion smells of an ego trip where people require DPS meters to re-inforce their self inflated opinions of themselves.

Let's have a look at the composition pretty much required (still) to get your first LK25HM kill, there is pretty much no room in there for an enhance shaman, why? Because the buffs they bring can be covered more easilly and will less maintenance by other classes while the enh shaman themselves is easilly replaced by other DPS classes that can do more DPS.

Why would you settle for second best when you know you can get 1st best with minimal effort (think about how many DKs / hunters there are out there.) Personally I see no reason, and besides the Hybrid Tax as people think of it is a load of crap. Warriors, DKs, Druids all do great DPS as the right spec, why is this not equal for enhance? Certainly not the number of rolls we can fill (Druids trumph us there) so what then?

We are asking for equallity, that is all.

[Mixelphlick]

Ok so I've seen several posts like this recently and ill be honest and up front i didnt read the whole thread. Heres the thing hybrids are not taxed because they can RESPEC they are taxed because they dont have to respec to help heal or tank or w/e. Because you have the capacity to heal/save a raid/ take weight of the healers or whatever you want to call it, and not taxed at all as far as buffs go. Now shamans specifically are "taxed" if you want to call it that by using totems for their buffs but that is only because they provide more varied buffs and utility than any other class around. Thats point number one.

Point number 2 is that everybody seems to think that the reason shamans fall behind on damage is this mysterious tax. Shamans scale ABYSMALLY late in an xpac atm. Because they have enough free crit moves that crit is a very weak upgrade and all of their casts are short enough that haste starts getting weak too. Shaman are not somehow more taxed in some Machiavellian scheme to keep them under pure damage classes they just scale badly because of some of their current mechanics. A similar issue happens with boomkins. The addition of the mastery system ALONE should alleviate some of the problem and I've seen a few other changes that will help even out shaman scaling.

Essentially this tax that people like to talk about means so many different things to so many different people, and most importantly often bears absolutely no resemblance to what blizzard has in mind that its become totally worthless to talk about. Its become such a catchall term that if for ANY reason any hybrid spec falls down it becomes part of the tax. Its getting ridiculous and people need to stop blaming the idea, that was probably a throwaway mention by GC originally, for all of their specs problems.

[Jynks]

You know what Blizzard has in mind? I agree the term is often misused but to have an insight into the inner working of Blizzard whereby you can state

most importantly often bears absolutely no resemblance to what blizzard has in mind that its become totally worthless to talk about

Amazing.

Your post hints at some issues that Elemental has, however it is not just Elemental shaman that have issues at the moment.

[nazrakin]

I have to disagree. Most pure dps classes I see require different gemming or gear pieces for specs. For example, Im a MM Hunter gemmed ArPen. If I wanted to play Survival, I'd have to re gem to Agility to get the full benefit of the spec.

Anyone would have to regem to min/max, even without regemming you can still pull off decent enough DPS since ARP is a DPS stat regardless. What I think he means is that an Enhancement Shaman can't just swap to Resto and start healing or a Fury Warrior just swap over to Prot and start tanking raid bosses.

[BigGann]

there's no need to try and identify what a hybrid is or means anymore, i only use the phrase "hybrid tax" because that seems to just be a euphemism for whatever ineptitude blizzard has going on.
[B]

Ok, you might have not read between the lines in my post. I just meant, since there are no hybrids anymore, meaning there are no unique buffs, or unique anything anymore really. Then having a hybrid tax is ridiculous. Every class, and I mean every single class should have the capabilities to pull off the same dps as any other class. If that mage can pull 10k dps with the same level gear as me, I can pull 10k dps. That is the only true way to ever implement bringing the player, and not the class.

[kaloryth]

Ok so I've seen several posts like this recently and ill be honest and up front i didnt read the whole thread. Heres the thing hybrids are not taxed because they can RESPEC they are taxed because they dont have to respec to help heal or tank or w/e. Because you have the capacity to heal/save a raid/ take weight of the healers or whatever you want to call it, and not taxed at all as far as buffs go.

No. This is the opposite of what the blues are stating. In fact, GC has explicitly stated the opposite is the case.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77330431&sid=1
In case stickies are hard to find.

[Xunae]

No. This is the opposite of what the blues are stating. In fact, GC has explicitly stated the opposite is the case.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77330431&sid=1
In case stickies are hard to find.

so according to that thread a druid, warrior, priest, and dk are all hybrids. Basically Blizzard is playing favorites or failing at balancing

[Mixelphlick]

No. This is the opposite of what the blues are stating. In fact, GC has explicitly stated the opposite is the case.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77330431&sid=1
In case stickies are hard to find.

Where? I havn't seen it anywhere but i will gladly eat my words if its true. Edit: for some reason your link didn't show up in your post on my side but showed up in someone else's quote, and for that i say, i was wrong and i apologize, regardless my other points stand.

@jynks I apologize that was bad/hasty wording on my part. I dont know what blizzard intends but using a term they mentioned a few times and never clearly defined or truly embraced means nobody does which is yet another reason the term is just plain bad. If your class has a problem i.e scaling, call it that don't call up some contrived excuse that never actually meant anything identifiable.

Enhance suffers most in fights which require movement and this problem is exacerbated at the end of an expansion because there is little tweaking going on at this point with cataclysm looming. But blizzard knows that, as they've mentioned several times and are working to fix it in cataclysm. If you mean beyond shaman then boomkin suffer from some of the same issues. Warriors on the other hand suffer from the complete opposite scaling like ass early in an expansion and going apeshit later on. Thats an issue blizzard has tried several approaches to fix and just hasnt hit it yet. Deathknights have gone from crazy damage to meh and every shade in between, they are only now starting to settle down as far as design goes. Ferals have a slightly different issue in that they have arguably the craziest rotation to keep track of in the game and as it stands now blizzard is ok with them being able to do retarded damage while that happens, it may not be right but i see why their that way. The problem right now is that a large number of forumgoers are trying to put all of the issues under one roof and call it a hybrid tax despite the fact that most of the specific issues have been noticed and are being addressed. Its not going to help anything if everyone keeps shouting about reducing the amount of a concept that hardly means anything at this point. What one needs to do is look at the more specific issues.

[JesusCrist]

Ok so I've seen several posts like this recently and ill be honest and up front i didnt read the whole thread. Heres the thing hybrids are not taxed because they can RESPEC they are taxed because they dont have to respec to help heal or tank or w/e. Because you have the capacity to heal/save a raid/ take weight of the healers or whatever you want to call it, and not taxed at all as far as buffs go. Now shamans specifically are "taxed" if you want to call it that by using totems for their buffs but that is only because they provide more varied buffs and utility than any other class around. Thats point number one.

I would guess from this quote that you have never seriously played a hybrid class. The capacity for hybrids who aren't spec to tank or heal to suddenly start doing so is fairly minimally, especially in raids. At most we can throw a heal or two on ourselves. But without the proper talents or gear we can't effectively heal either the raid or a tank for more then a few seconds on a fairly easy encounter. If you're doing anything more difficult your ability to do such a thing is non-existent. The capacity for any hybrid to tank a raid would be similarly low considering that they wouldn't have any of the correct stats.

[Northy]

All Ele is getting in Cata is a channeled AoE /lol.

LvB clearly is gonna hit for less, and against players with huge health pools.

Ele is in for a sad shock

imo the extreme detest towards Earthquake is justifiable, it's not a worthy 31-pointer.

[rabbimojo]

If your argument is that pures can not be given the option of new roles because it would be a lot of work for Blizzard I am afraid I do not see much merit in that. For one thing, no release date has been set for the launch of Cataclysm. They could still take as much time with it as they want. And they have already shown that they are open to redesigning classes. They changed DK's so that they only had one tanking spec after all, and they have released several paragraphs on the massive changes to Paladins. (Not complaining about either of those things, merely pointing them out.) But even if they want Cataclysm out sooner then later, no one is saying that this kind of change has to be delivered right away. If Ghostcrawler came out tomorrow and said that eliminating the pure nature of pure classes was a long-term goal, I think many would find that satisfactory, provided of course that there was somewhat steady proof of working toward that goal. My argument isn't that the Hybrid Tax is crippling, or that it makes it impossible for those classes to be competitive. My argument is that it is fundamentally unfair for it to be the official policy that one DPS spec should be able to do more DPS spec because that player could theoretically switch specs. Let's say that theoretically the hybrid tax was eliminated. How long would it take for the loss of pure classes to happen? Especially if Ghostcrawler did announce that the pure classes would be given secondary roles? I would be willing to bet that Blizzard would be able to redesign 4 specs before the pure classes disappeared.

1) Please use line breaks.

2) I'm not saying they can't, just that they aren't likely to.

3) Many times GC has "come out and said" this or that thing that people thought would quiet the raging populace. If you maintain a finger on the pulse of the community through those discussions and onward, it never really does. All it does is direct anger to some other set of people.

4) I don't think the purist population reduction would be a quick thing, or even necessarily guaranteed. I agree it would be slow, and if they felt like it, they could change those specs to make it work. Maybe it would even be a good idea. However, if you think Blizz can take as long as they like just because they haven't released a date, I've got a bridge to sell you. As much leeway as Blizzard's production teams have, they are still beholden to business interests.

5) Yes the tax is unfair. The main argument saying otherwise is that hybrids have more flexibility, and in large part that is nullified by easy rerolling. However, the game is absolutely rife with unfair things - it's an MMO. In order to maintain the game Blizzard wants, they adopt various large-picture policies. If you don't enjoy that, you've got a few options:
A) Convince Blizz otherwise
B) Deal with it
C) Leave

That's just the way it is.

[Kinderwurst]

No Taxation without Representation!


Wait, what?